"The 33"-Road Bike RacingWe set this forum up for our members to discuss their experiences in either pro or amateur racing, whether they are the big races, or even the small backyard races. Don't forget to update all the members with your own race results.

Thanks for popping in with your perspective psimet. Consider this a good place to rant.

I happen to be an optimist around the economy and industry (not so much around our willingness to distance socially). Yes, many restaurants and shops (bike and otherwise) are going to be unable to weather this closure and the longer economic downturn that results from all this. And I feel terrible for those shop owners and their employees. But in the end other shops will open, restaurants will re-open or new ones in their place, and most all of us will get by. And bike racing will happen again.

Personally, the entire company I work for will essentially go to 1/2 time (and 1/2 pay) in early April (except for some manufacturing workers getting temporarily laid off). The intent is to be able to come out the other side without permanent lay-offs, but we'll see. Hopefully it is for a short enough time that I can weather the financial hit without trouble. I realize my financial situation is much better than many have it right now, so I'm not complaining. It is what it is for me.

Yeah I hate to say it but I am actually preferring this distancing. Enough that I almost get subconsciously offended when people actually come in to the shop. Even friends.

I've been walking the same route with my dog every workday (when telecommuting) for 8 years. Never a soul around, maybe a runner to two. Now its filled with families and individuals walking, and I just hate it for some reason. I shouldn't care, but I do.

I think today the Collegiate Nats was canceled. We expected that, now official.

For the record I think NYC has a bad problem. No comment. I'm posting about my local area and some interesting numbers as a whole.

Hoag down a bit. Yesterday 27 beds full today 19 - suspects, not confirmed COVID-19 so the stats are weird and hard to get.
They have 6 positives in Newport Beach and 2 in Irvine. That one death of a 77 year old with other co-morbid conditions.
Stats are now including the under investigation in the cases. That turns out to be significantly under 50% in the OC.
It really messes with the numbers as you see cases go down. Deaths also have gone down as they get re-categorized (people still die from other stuff).
Reports are we will get city stats later https://www.ocregister.com/2020/03/2...arting-friday/

I am hoping our local restrictions will be removed come the 31st, but am not counting on it. I doubt it will make a difference in deaths one way or the other.
I am now hearing others reports that this affects gender differently, not a bunch, but significantly. Some groups still have many cases - no deaths. 709 cases in S Africa right now, 0 deaths. Russia-658/2, Israel 2,369/5, Czech Republic 1,654/6.

I'd like to see a genome based map, but we aren't going to see that. Cases mean less and less each day.

BTW - saw a really long detailed video on if you do get this thing, do not take Advil (ibuprofen) or Aspirin - better Tylenol. The former suppress the immune system, while great anti-inflammatory and pain killers.

I want to laud the pro teams and riders and triathletes going out of their way to participate virtually right now when possible. At the same time, WTF are the rest doing? If it's a furlough situation, I totally get not doing anything extra. But, for the fans, I think they could do a bit of a better job throwing some bones out there.

Team I follow has a lot of riders on the team and in dev. Most Zwift at some point. They keep posting little snippets of them doing solo stuff. Ok......

Toss the fans a bone. What else is going on right now? Spain, France, and Italy on lockdown for outdoor riding. So literally 2/3 of this team is at home indoors.

I want to laud the pro teams and riders and triathletes going out of their way to participate virtually right now when possible. At the same time, WTF are the rest doing? If it's a furlough situation, I totally get not doing anything extra. But, for the fans, I think they could do a bit of a better job throwing some bones out there.

Team I follow has a lot of riders on the team and in dev. Most Zwift at some point. They keep posting little snippets of them doing solo stuff. Ok......

Toss the fans a bone. What else is going on right now? Spain, France, and Italy on lockdown for outdoor riding. So literally 2/3 of this team is at home indoors.

You'd think at least one team would have a marketing person smart enough to use this as a springboard to become the most community-involved team. Win team schwag and whatnot.

I don't think it's a swag thing, it's just exposure for them and making sure the sponsors get something. If the team is out there interacting with fans somehow, there's likely some sponsor exposure too. No sponsor exposure, no sponsors, no teams, no racing, no fans.

I would give our company a D on the sponsor awareness or exposure front. I think maybe 1 in 3 employees know we sponsor a pro team. That's pretty bad.

If I were our company, I'd be putting their races or coverage on a cafeteria TV all the time and put some rider profiles up in break areas or something. Sure, you can "follow" on social media. They do little snippets and stuff.

I've been very proactive in trying to prevent getting this. Being asthmatic I'm 'high risk', so I'm going under the assumption it won't go well for me. We're all aware of social distancing and hand washing but imo there are a few other things we can do, specifically builidng the immune system. Here is some things I do:

I've been very proactive in trying to prevent getting this. Being asthmatic I'm 'high risk', so I'm going under the assumption it won't go well for me. We're all aware of social distancing and hand washing but imo there are a few other things we can do, specifically builidng the immune system. Here is some things I do:

**EDIT** almost forgot. Breathe through your nose when possible. Its the natural way, and designed to filter. (Obviously we can't do that training)

If anyone else has something to add I'm all ears.

I liked the video and I have read a couple of the papers on immune response to exercise. I would add the sleep may be the most important aspect of all your points mentioned. In the book, Why We Sleep, Walker discusses the benefits of sleep on the immune system. For example, he recommends monitoring sleep and timing a flu shot when one has a high average of longer sleep sessions in a row to get a higher immune response and a better immunization.

What I am doing is making sure that my exercise routine does not impact sleep meaning if I do an evening session many times I am wired and do not sleep well. That may be an individual response but I deem it bad for me. On the other hand, I consider a morning workout with an afternoon nap ideal followed by a solid night of sleep. That may not be possible for many due to work schedules but since many are working from home, it may be more practical.

Call covered everything we got notices on earlier yesterday regarding the layoffs and furloughs. 40% of all staff. The rest took pay cuts. Supposedly everyone.

They wouldn't seem to budge on the date in terms of giving any indication but honestly said they just don't know anything at this point. My race is May 17th and I don't anticipate being able to run it. I have asked the village and they are wanting to wait before they decide but are open to rearranging the date. We have had 4 or 5 races so far just cancel outright. Not worth trying to postpone or impossible due to venue constraints.

Everyone always says I am too melodramatic but this time I really do think road is dead for this season. If we are back in time for late July/ The Intelligentsia Cup then it will be super busy...if everyone feels safe. If it's the first event back then it won't have numbers. Not sure what that means for Schuler and crew. They are smart and will look for the long term success over pushing it for one year and losing.

...but cyclocross will be absolutely off the hook. Sooooo many people already talking about it and basically trashing the rest of the road season.

Call covered everything we got notices on earlier yesterday regarding the layoffs and furloughs. 40% of all staff. The rest took pay cuts. Supposedly everyone.

They wouldn't seem to budge on the date in terms of giving any indication but honestly said they just don't know anything at this point. My race is May 17th and I don't anticipate being able to run it. I have asked the village and they are wanting to wait before they decide but are open to rearranging the date. We have had 4 or 5 races so far just cancel outright. Not worth trying to postpone or impossible due to venue constraints.

Everyone always says I am too melodramatic but this time I really do think road is dead for this season. If we are back in time for late July/ The Intelligentsia Cup then it will be super busy...if everyone feels safe. If it's the first event back then it won't have numbers. Not sure what that means for Schuler and crew. They are smart and will look for the long term success over pushing it for one year and losing.

...but cyclocross will be absolutely off the hook. Sooooo many people already talking about it and basically trashing the rest of the road season.

Its really too soon to say, because you need info that’s unavailable until this plays out to a greater extent, but I would be surprised if we’re back to large public events this summer. I think we’ll probably get to the point of small gatherings being ok by summer with a good chance of social isolation coming back this fall.

I don’t know this enough to be cancelling my summer plans for crowd-intensive things (gravel race, Disneyland). But I’m skeptical they’ll be ok.

I dont think youre wrong to think there will be no road season this year. I’d be a little surprised if there will be a cross season this year.

Hopefully it does not unfold the way I see it unfolding and we’re back to “normal” soon enough.

I don't really buy the cross thing. Most indications are that this will likely come back strong in the autumn necessitating another round of social distancing. If there's a sweet spot it'll be summer. The real mitigating factor is how well will we contain the NYC meltdown, and what will be the national impact of that.

Sure, but if in autumn we have adequate testing and treatment, things shouldn't need to be quite as tight at least. The NYC situation is scary. My sister, best friend and officiant is a network TV producer - used to live in NYC (Bed-Stuy), but moved back to the West Coast a couple years ago.

Yeah, I'm assuming this is here to stay. The goal has to be to keep the "curve" flat enough that we maximize the ability for those that need medical attention to get it. Beyond that I think there isn't much that can be done. Hopefully doctors pull off a vaccine quickly, and with luck, the virus doesn't mutate quickly enough that a vaccine isn't effective. We're getting a taste of what life was like before Penicillin, and what life is like in a lot of poorer countries.

Yeah I've head the 12-18 month vaccine development period as well. In interviews, Bill Gates is confident that in the future we should be able to develop and mfg. vaccines in as little as 6 months, but that is still a very long time in the context of social distancing and lockdown.

Testing is the thing that can (and should) be deployed more rapidly - there's just so much we don't know and we seem to be behind the curve there relative to other countries. Hopefully with increased data we can make more informed decisions about policies on national, state and local levels.

These next few weeks will be critical and interesting to observe. I ran into two SDBC club members (one racer) during my ride today who seem to be not as vigilant about social distancing as Liz and I are - One discussed having friends over for a couple drinks, but "making sure they stayed far apart". The other (racer) mentioned that he and another teammate will be doing a long one next weekend and trying to keep the group size to 3-4 and that I was invited... I said I'm going to stick to solo riding for a few weeks at least, until we get a longer scope on this thing.

Many people don't seem to be respecting the social distancing measures and it worries me a little bit. They closed down public parks and beaches which was an obvious call, I had never seen them so packed before as I rode by. This is why we can't have nice things!